A few months into becoming a new parent, I had a foundational experience that shaped how I think about parenting and the power of emotional connection. It became obvious to me that the quality of my relationship with my firstborn, and my other two children a handful of years down the line, would have a significant impact on every aspect of their development.
That experience and many others over the course of my parenting have greatly informed our work at Einhorn Collaborative.
Over the last two decades, we’ve supported efforts through our Bonding strategy that promote nurturing relationships between babies and their parents from the start. This work draws on research from developmental neuroscience, physiology, pediatrics, and behavioral science.
The insights from our grantee partners show, with remarkable consistency, that the quality of a child’s earliest relationships shapes brain architecture, stress response, capacity for empathy, and long-term physical and mental health. It’s in those earliest connections that a child begins to discover who they are and builds the capacity for trust, empathy, and mutually supportive relationships. Researchers, pediatricians, and parent leaders now call this field of study early relational health.
Yet, despite all the research findings, very little has changed in standard pediatric practice. Our health care system is built around treatment: something goes wrong, and then we intervene. We prescribe the medication after the diagnosis. Promoting early relational health requires a different way of thinking. Notably, our theory of change involves interpersonal connection, rather than pharmaceuticals. We see no medical downside to increasing eye contact and more hugs. What happens between the ages of 0-3 has implications for how people navigate the world for the rest of their lives.
I am not, by nature, a long-term planner. My instinct is always to ask what we can do right now, in this moment, to make a difference. And today, there’s a large gap between what we know about early relational health and how we translate that knowledge into standard pediatric care to support families in the earliest years. Pediatricians continue to be one of the most trusted, non-stigmatizing sources for guidance about parenting. And the majority of American families see their pediatric care providers at least twelve times during their child’s first three years. This makes pediatric visits one of the most promising places to support families and their relational health.
That is why I am honored to announce that Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), in partnership with Einhorn Collaborative, is establishing a first-of-its-kind Institute for Early Relational Health to transform pediatric practice and advance the science of human connection.
This is how we close the knowledge-to-implementation gap.
CHOP was founded in 1855 as the nation’s first children’s hospital, and it remains one of the largest pediatric research enterprises nationally and globally. I cannot think of a better home for this work. The David M. Einhorn Institute for Early Relational Health will live within CHOP’s Research Institute and be led by its Inaugural Director Dr. Dani Dumitriu, whose own research has demonstrated how much early relationships matter for children’s long-term development, illness prevention, and family resilience.
Alongside Einhorn Collaborative’s grantee partners, Reach Out and Read and Nurture Connection, Dr. Dumitriu’s team is already running a longitudinal cohort study called COMBO National, following 5,000 families from birth through adulthood to understand how early relational health shapes child health, family well-being, and social connectedness. They are also developing a training module to teach pediatricians how to recognize and nurture the parent-child bond during routine well-child visits, so every family receives the support, encouragement, and guidance to nurture emotional connection early and often.
Beyond the research and clinical work, the Institute will convene an annual conference for the field, award an annual prize for leadership and innovation, and build cohorts of Einhorn Scholars and Einhorn Fellows to train the next generation of early relational health researchers and practitioners.
If the Einhorn Institute is successful, a new parent walking into a well-child visit will leave with more than a growth chart. They’ll receive specific practices and knowledge to strengthen emotional connection with their child, delivered with the same rigor and credibility we currently apply to physical health.
If applied consistently and at scale, millions more children will grow into adults who are capable of connecting, empathizing, and building trust with others throughout their lives.
The muscles we develop in childhood to reconnect and repair relationships after a tantrum or a quibble on the playground are the muscles we lean on in adulthood to navigate conflicts when they inevitably arise. This is how we find paths toward common ground and work together, especially across lines of difference, to tackle some of the most difficult challenges of our time.
I want to thank Jenn Hoos Rothberg, our Executive Director, whose vision and steady leadership helped carry this idea from conversation into reality, and Ira Hillman, our Bonding Strategy Lead, whose years of relationship-building in this field helped chart the course to make this moment possible. Their persistence and dedication are why the Einhorn Institute exists today, and I’m deeply grateful to them both. I also want to thank Martha G. Welch, MD, DFAPA, for her early and foundational research on emotional connection.
My own kids are grown now, and witnessing who they have become is one of the great privileges of my life. I didn’t get everything right as a parent. No one does. But I believe that my commitment to building strong, nurturing relationships with my children played a role in the wonderful human beings they have become today. I couldn’t be more proud of them, and I want every child and family to have that opportunity.
That is the future I hope the Einhorn Institute helps build: a nation in which emotional connection between parents and children is treated as foundational to a healthier, more connected and cohesive society.
I would ask two things of you. First, learn more about the Einhorn Institute here. If you’re working on efforts that share the same goals, please reach out to the team there. Let’s figure out what we can do together to advance this mission. Second, and more importantly, if you’re a parent or a caring adult in a child’s life, take advantage of the everyday moments to cultivate emotional connection. The love you give is essential to the child’s healthy development, and the love you receive in return will undoubtedly add to your overall well-being.
With hope for what our children, and their children, might build together.
